Latino Daily News

STUDY: Latino Voters Face Bias by Election Officials

A study by Harvard political science students found that local election officials are biased against Latino voters and hence are less responsive to their election inquiries.

As part of the study the political science students crafted emails to election officials in 48 states asking basic election questions, with 25 percent of the inquiries coming from people with Latino-sounding names. The conclusion: Latinos were less likely to garner a response than others. In addition when the Latino election inquiries were answered they were likely to be less-informative and less likely to have a friendly tone, the Washington Post noted.

This is not the first study to make the same conclusion. Other studies have found bias on the part of municipal elections officials. All this bias may lead to barriers that impact Latino’s ability and willingness to vote.

If Latinos are discouraged or given wrong information around a local election they may decide to stay home at election time.